He shook his head. “No. Just the death headed … our way.”
“I’d like to know whether or not it was the same magic as on the roof in LA. Is the black witch who threw this curse the summoner?”
Fish snorted with amusement. “You think you’ve got yourself a bona fide nemesis, Socks?”
I ignored him. “Let’s move.” I stopped myself from reaching for Knox. I needed my hands free, and he didn’t need the magical boost. Cla5 had to be functional, not overwhelmed by his visions.
Zans got Knox over her shoulder and onto his feet. I stepped away to assess the stairwell for traps, though I knew that if Calhoun and Jackson had already passed through, they’d likely disabled anything that had been left behind.
“I wouldn’t want it to be me,” Zans muttered quietly. “Just me, standing between Socks and anything she wanted.”
“Feeling sorry for the witch trying to kill us, Tek5?” Fish asked. “How softhearted of you.”
“I don’t give a shit about the witch. Fixating on Socks proves she’s an idiot. I want the big guns.”
Knox moaned lightly, pained. I glanced back, leveling a look at Zans for jostling him. She snapped her mouth shut on whatever else she was going to add to her rant of vengeance against the Collective.
We didn’t have time to plan for our future just yet. We had to survive our present first.
Chapter 8
The stairwell to the main level had been replaced with a swamp — complete with blackened, misshapen trees, stunted bushes I couldn’t identify, and a stagnant smell of burned grease that made my stomach churn. Paisley, the demon puppy, coughed three times, then burrowed into the backpack, quivering.
“Pulled through from another dimension?” Bee asked in a whisper.
I nodded, but didn’t linger to see what creatures might have been swimming within the swamp to confirm. Either way, it was another massive display of power from our adversary.
We wouldn’t be able to climb to the main floor, as we’d planned. We’d have to go the long way.
Fish sealed the doorway behind us as we turned into the main corridor of level one. That first level of the compound below ground mostly housed various training facilities dedicated to specific disciplines, both magical and mundane.
The corridor appeared empty.
“Tactical unit. A dozen or more,” Knox said, pushing himself off Zans’s shoulder to stand. He swayed but didn’t fall. “Middle of the hall.”
I reached for the nearest door, opening and standing behind it. It was constructed out of reinforced steel coated in layers of magical fortification, so that spells could be practiced within safely. Well, safely for anyone in the corridor. Bee slipped in beside me.
Fish, Zans, and Knox did the same on the other side of the hall, slightly forward from my position.
I stepped partially into the room to my left so that I could eye the corridor before us through the thin opening between the door and the jamb. “Still looks clear,” I whispered. “Bee?”
The telepath shook her head with a grimace. “Feedback.”
They were blocking Bee, which was to be expected. And they were either mostly blocking Knox, or the death curse had consumed a lot of his magic.
But they were going to have a hard time blocking me. I’d yet to encounter a magical being who could stop me. Unfortunately, I had to lay hands on my victims.
I glanced over at Fish and Zans, speaking as quietly as I could while still being clear. “Frontal attack. Nul5 and I strip their shields, then —”
Knox gasped. His eyes flared white. “Now!”
I stepped to the center of the hall, reaching for Fish’s outstretched hand. Nul5’s magic lashed out, surrounding us. I pumped my magic into him, increasing his output. A shield snapped into place before us. Zans crossed to my other side, taking my free hand. I amplified her at the same time I did Fish.
The shield before us sparked at multiple points.
Gunfire.
Headshots, if they’d gotten through.
It was worth a try, but ultimately stupid.
The hall before us still appeared to be empty. The camouflage spell they were holding in place, along with what I assumed were multiple barrier spells, hadn’t even rippled with the primary assault.
“Take out the shooters,” I said.
Fish thrust his hand forward. His amplified nullifying power boiled down the corridor, shredding through the shielding the tactical team had thought would hold against us.
I caught sight of a half-dozen of the assault team as they scrambled, falling back, dragging screaming team members with them. I picked up magic from a mixture of sorcerers, shapeshifters, and at least one witch, but no one I immediately recognized. Whoever was holding the wards — likely multiple people, if they were planning to stand against the Five — got the camouflage and barrier spells back in place.
The lack of return gunfire indicated that the shooters had been incapacitated, likely from the backfiring of their own weapons. Weapons whose warding they had gambled on being strong enough to stand against the five of us united.
The spells blocking the assault team from my sight flickered. Imperfect now. Fish’s assault had hurt the casters as well.
“Move,” I murmured.
Zans, Fish, and I stepped forward as one, steadily closing the space between us and the shielded tactical team.
Bee and Knox slipped in behind us.
“They called for backup, another dozen,” Knox muttered. “Too many. They’ll be tripping over each other.” He pressed his palm against my back, his power shifting across all four of my blood tattoos.
He sighed heavily. Then he started loosening the straps of the backpack holding the demon pup, Paisley.
I didn’t question the clairvoyant. But I couldn’t release Zans’s or Fish’s hands to help him.
A magical barrage hit us next. Spell after spell exploded against Fish’s nullifying field.
Knox got the puppy loose. “Help me, Bee,” he whispered.
I felt more than saw Bee get the backpack strapped frontways onto Knox. A chill twisted through me — both from the prolonged contact with the demon pup, and from the idea that Knox had seen the need for me to be unfettered.
Something massive struck the nullifying shield, exploding in a burst of magically fueled fire.
Fish stumbled. “Fuck!” His shield compressed around us for a moment. “They’ve been keeping that in their back pockets.”
“Let me loose, Socks,” Zans muttered. “Let me loose.”
“Knox?” I asked.
“Not yet. I’m not seeing too clearly, but … it … it comes down to you, Socks. I think. Either that, or we’re all about to die.”
I glanced back at him.
He shrugged. “Like I said, there’s a lot of magic being thrown, and it’s not terribly clear what …” His eyes flared white suddenly. “Fish!”
Something hit the barrier right in front of the nullifier’s face, resolving into a black splotch. Then it started drilling through the shield.
“Fish?” I asked.
He shook his head, his gaze pinned to the spell trying to make its way through the nullifying barrier toward him. Then he grimaced, starting to shake with the effort of keeping the spell at bay.
I tore my hand free from his grip, slamming my palm across his back instead. I pumped power into him directly through the blood tattoo that bound my magic to him.
The spell wormed its way through the shield, hitting Fish in the forehead. I pumped more magic into him as he reached up and wrapped his fingers, along with his magic, around the spell that was trying to attach itself to him.
Fish’s shield contracted tightly around us. He couldn’t spread it across the hall and fight the spell trying to kill him at the same time.
“That …” Zans murmured. “That shouldn’t be possible. Not while he’s amplified. Hit him over the head, poison him, or suffocation … but …”
“They have our blood,�
� I said grimly. “We’re sitting ducks.”
Another spell hit Fish’s shield.
Knox grabbed for Bee, pulling her behind Fish, who was still fighting with the spell. The clairvoyant met my gaze.
I saw my death in his eyes. All of our deaths.
I pulled my blades, spinning to face the corridor. The tactical team’s shield was battered, shredded in places. “Try to not bring down the corridor, Zans.”
Tek5 nodded, flexing her hands.
“Fish?” I asked.
He grunted, indicating that he’d heard — and that he understood.
A second spell made it through Fish’s nullifying field, slamming into Knox. Nul5 reached back with his other hand, trying to wrench it free of the clairvoyant.
“Give me a little push, Zans,” I said. I crouched low, raising my blades before me.
She laughed, placing her hand on my back.
“Now!” I shouted.
Fish released his nullifying shield with a shove. It flooded through the hall, shredding the last of the defenses between us and our opponents — hopefully along with any magic they’d activated.
I sprang forward, leaping into the air. Zans’s magic followed me, pushing me farther and faster than I could have leaped on my own.
I flew along the corridor, seeing the looks of horror dawning across the faces of the tactical team.
I tucked my knees to my chest, hitting the ground, then allowed the momentum to roll me forward, deep into the team scrambling to confront me.
Knox was right. They were tripping over themselves in the tight space.
I took the first two out with fast slashes to the midsection before I even gained my feet. Zans teleported in beside me. Her short range was deadly accurate if she could home in on one of the Five.
Our adversaries stumbled back. I took two more out, their magic dying on their lips, unarticulated.
Magic slammed against me, promising my death. Pain shrieked through my every nerve. I lost hold of my right blade, though it should have been magically tied to me. I managed to kill the caster responsible with my left.
Then I grabbed the face of the sorcerer closest to me, taking his magic. Every last drop. I fed his death to the spell attempting to claim me. He fell at my feet, a withered husk. Thankfully, whoever had cast the original spell hadn’t tied the curse to me with blood and sacrifice.
The remaining members of the tactical team stumbled back in terror. Zans brushed her shoulder against mine. A sorcerer and a shapeshifter to my left started clawing at their throats, their collars appearing to choke them.
Bee screamed, still behind us.
I spun, leaving Zans to finish off the stragglers.
Bee was standing in the middle of the corridor. The telepath was shaking, her hands thrust before her. Fish and Knox were down behind her. But I could see the shimmer of a nullifying field, so Fish was still conscious.
Three of the tactical team had made it past Zans and me, or had teleported into the hall behind us. Bee was trying to hold them off.
I scooped up my fallen blade, already running.
Bee met my gaze. Then slowly, straining against whatever magic was attempting to hold her in place, she pointed to the witch on her left.
That witch spun around, meeting my gaze. She attempted to throw another spell at me.
She was either too slow or too drained, or was unable to maintain whatever she was doing to block Bee and cast at the same time.
Still running, I threw my blade — a sloppy move, though the weapon was well balanced. It managed to take the witch between the eyes. She fell.
Released from whatever power the witch had been holding against her, Bee’s magic lashed out. She screamed. Her own power flooded the hall, battering against me.
Every single member of the tactical team who was still alive enough to feel Bee’s wrath stiffened, convulsed, and fell to the floor, mouths foaming. Bee’s telepathy had scrambled their minds.
Then they stilled. Brain-dead. Though their hearts would most likely beat for a little while longer.
Bee dropped to the ground, upright but spent.
Fish’s shield compressed around him and Knox — then contracted specifically around the spells he was holding at bay in his hands.
I dashed toward him, wrenching my second blade out of the witch’s head. Then I grabbed the two nearest sorcerers that Bee had felled, dragging them with me. Without thinking about what I was doing, I slashed and ripped the armor from the sorcerers’ chests, offering my blade to Fish.
He nodded. Barely able to hold his head upright, he pressed his hands together, shaking and grunting until he managed to hold the two death curses in one hand. Then he took my blade and carved a pentagram in the chest of the sorcerer nearest to him.
“Knox first,” I said.
The clairvoyant crawled to us, pushing up the sleeve of his sweatshirt. I held his arm over the pentagram carved into the skin of the sorcerer and bled him.
Fish traced the pentagram over and over, muttering and mixing the blood together. Then he fed Knox’s death curse to the sorcerer Bee had incapacitated.
I repeated the process with the second sorcerer, Fish’s blood, and the death curse meant for him.
Zans came striding down the hall, brushing her hands together. “I finished off what was left of the tactical team on this level,” she said matter-of-factly. “Then I scouted ahead. The stairs are clear.”
I cast my gaze around the corridor, counting twenty-two bodies. But we had another level to clear just to make it out of the building. And only Zans and I were fully functional.
“The black witch,” I said, pointing toward the witch whose head I’d split open. “That wasn’t her.”
Zans shook her head grimly. “Nope.”
“They’ll have curses ready for you and me,” I said. “Possibly more for the others, in case we thwart the first volley.”
“She’s killing someone with each curse she releases,” Fish said wearily. “She’s going to run out of people to sacrifice.”
“I doubt they were volunteering,” Zans said darkly.
Bee half crawled, half dragged herself over to Knox and Fish, pulling bandages out of her pockets and slapping them over the slashes where I’d bled them.
The demon puppy stuck her head out of the backpack still strapped to Knox’s chest, panting happily.
“Zans and I go ahead, clearing the way —”
“No,” Fish said. “We stick together. You’re going to need us, Socks.” He looked over at Knox grimly. “Isn’t she?”
“Yeah.” Knox petted the puppy gently. “We stick together. That much I see. We stick together until there’s nothing left to see.”
Silence settled over us as the understanding of what Knox was saying sank in. He wasn’t seeing a future for us. Not beyond the next few moments. That could have meant anything, of course. But one of those many possibilities was that we were all going to die.
And then what would it all have been for? For what reason had we even existed in the first place? Just to be the pawns of the Collective? There was so much blood on our hands … on my hands, specifically. Hands that had been designed, then trained, to kill. And I wasn’t going to get a chance to make a different choice for myself.
“I refuse,” I snarled. “I refuse to die here. Where they bred us, where they forced us to kill, to become murderers. They stole our childhoods.”
“We wouldn’t exist without them,” Fish said, always practical.
“I don’t give a shit,” I said. “I’ll die on my own terms. Outside. With the breeze and the sun on my face. Not in their prison, not under their control.”
They all looked at me, startled by my overly emotional outburst.
Then Knox laughed quietly. “All right.”
Chapter 9
Fish was so drained from fighting what amounted to three named death curses in a row that he couldn’t shield us and walk at the same time. Not even amplified by me. And according
to the clairvoyant, I had to watch my own reserves as well. So Knox and Bee worked together to keep themselves mostly upright, and Zans carried Fish telekinetically.
Problem was, prolonged telekinesis and living tissue didn’t mix well, usually resulting in internal organ damage. And that was when Zans was trying to wield her magic precisely. But twenty-one years of practice and the blood tattoos we all bore made carrying us aloft for short stints, or throwing me forward into a battle situation, easier.
Knox got enough glimpses of the immediate future to guide us through the literal minefield waiting for us on the final flight of stairs to the main level. Zans tossed anything the clairvoyant identified in our path — anything that couldn’t just be avoided or neutralized by Fish — over the stairs and down into the depths of the compound. Magic raged at our backs as we finally climbed to the final level of the compound — the only part of the concrete-and-steel building that was above ground.
Then we were within viewing distance of the front entrance. The concrete gave way to windows and glass front doors. A large seating area with straight-backed couches and chairs. Even a few plants.
Unfortunately, the security checkpoint that sealed the entrance off from the outside world was occupied by what remained of the compound’s tactical force, easily another two dozen people.
Plus one massively powerful black witch.
Our current overseer.
Silver Pine.
She stood about three strides this side of the magically fortified bulletproof glass that divided the front reception area from the main security checkpoint. She might have been anywhere from thirty-five to fifty. Age was difficult to estimate in those of the magical persuasion — and even more difficult with the amount of black energy seething from within and around her. She was standing barefoot in a dark cloud of power that writhed across the polished concrete floor in all directions.
She pinned her black-orbed eyes on me as I stepped up ahead of the other four. Deep-blue veins stood out from the pale skin of her neck, upper chest, arms, and lower legs. She was wearing a black silk crepe dress that was tattered from just above her knees to her ankles.
The Amplifier Protocol (Amplifier 0) Page 11